Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Gilbert's basket

Given the dismal forecast, I dressed to get wet this morning in a jean skirt, tights, knit shirt and shell. The skirt only got wet around the edges, and the tights dried really quickly.
The weather varied from heavy mist to honest to God rain, but despite that there was a good turnout at the Harvard Bike Breakfast, which had been moved inside the crowded vestibule of the AuBonPain in Harvard square.

There were free blinkie lights, bike maps, and an assortment of bikers, most, but not all affiliated with Harvard. I did learn one new tidbit from a woman who commutes via train from Quincy to South Station, where she keeps a bike to get around the city (I wish I'd got her name!). She says that they're putting in secure bike cages- weather protected, card accessed in at South Station- kind of like the ones at Alewife, another terminal station. I think this is a great move, and I hope that the T will work on adding these facilities to all the big terminals and commuter rail- subway interfaces. I rode part of the way in with an acquaintance from previous bike weeks, but inline in a bike lane is a lousy way to chat.
No real pictures from today, but this is the same outfit from a week or so ago.

The big news is that Gilbert's basket arrived from the land of Ebay:

It's an old trout creel, with pale wicker and leather banding. It's very shallow, which is great because that means it doesn't hide his lovely eyes. (please please don't judge the drunken rear rack- it's a work in progress, and I need some fabrication time to fix the struts so that it's horizontal..)

It's more capacious than I thought it might be- plenty of room for a jacket and a camera.

It needs a little care- I'll probably bleach, and then shellac the wicker, and give the leather a good oiling.

These are just approximations of the mounting, I'll have to spend more time getting it all attached. Tonight I rode home, and dropped off my stuff, then took Gilbert to Harris to get a checkup tomorrow. I'm having a few small issues with the freewheel, and want someone with a bit more experience to double check the DIY work on the basic systems to make sure I didn't do something massively wrong. It was really sad to leave him in the rain (covered with a saddle cover and a piece of plastic sheet) overnight. He was supposed to go in yesterday night, but given the forecast of rain today, and Minerva's rainy day braking performance, I decided to postpone it so that I could ride her in the hopefully better weather tomorrow.